Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency JPRS report, dated 1 August 1990, translates an interview with cosmonaut Maj. Gen. Aleksey Leonov from the Soviet journal Aviatsiya i Kosmonavtika. Leonov describes the Soviet manned lunar program, its L-1 and N-1 failures and crew training, and criticizes Soviet secrecy and economic policy. Asked whether Apollo 11 astronauts saw extraterrestrials, he says UFO watchers took a remark out of context, since "they" meant Earth.
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## Document 2 of 8 building their fantasies on it. After the landing on the Moon, clear communications were set up with the flight control center in Houston. A picture was sent to the Moon and back. Neal Armstrong, exiting from the ship, stepped onto the surface very carefully, and then he grew bolder, and his steps became more confident, and he began to jump. I've seen those frames. James Aldrin, turning to him, said, ''Look out, they're watching us.''' ''They'' in the sense of ''Earth.'' Then he advised Armstrong not to violate the instructions and to be more careful. And in fact, after that, Neal Armstrong began to walk with normal steps. I have told the UFO watchers repeatedly, ''Why are you speculating about this? It's not at all what you think.'' 21. We have created the reusable Buran, it has gone through the first tests, and now some--for example, Academician Sagdeyev--say that we don't need it. What is your opinion? 22. We have the Mir program. If we really want to collect dividends, we have to be able to bring back to Earth the materials involved in the research that is carried out. The Soyuz craft can return a small volume of cargo that weighs a maximum of 100-120 kg. We are planning to return tons. Only Buran can do that. In light of that, I can't agree with Sagdeyev when he says that there's nothing for Buran to do in orbit. We need it as a component part of the transport system of the Mir program. Sagdeyev is not right here. 23. On top of that, he was silent before now, and now he is raising objections. It would be more ethical on his part to be giving an accounting for his own project: why did the Phobos vehicles, which he launched and in which large sums were invested, fail before reaching their target? 24. This, it seems, would be a good place to touch on the matter of improving the profitability of space? 25. The space program, being the embodiment of the leading scientific and engineering thinking, is indeed capable of a much larger economic return. The Americans, after spending $25 billion on the lunar program, subsequently made a profit twice that figure through the introduction of new technologies and developments. The situation is somewhat different with us. But whose fault is that? The space program's? 26. As far back as the '30s, Academician Kapitsa posed this question to the economic council of the Sovnarkom: What incentives for adoption of new inventions are built into the Soviet system? And he answered the question himself: 'I see none.' The situation has not changed since that time. What projects have the economists not justified to please the politicians--'depeasantization,' the
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 6 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.